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Helping Vehicle
Back to Building (Overall) Helping vehicles are used to help other space vehicles reach their destination. They are used when the main ship does not have enough fuel, in case of a malfunction or when a ship fails to do an engine burn when it should. Helping vehicles usually are unmanned. Basic Helping Ships These ships can be built within the basic, free game. Earth Surface The Mercury Return Mission or the Venus Return Mission requires huge amounts of fuel and no room for errors. Some players managed to build a separate Launch Vehicle, move it near the Launchpad, then fly a second ship above it. The helping vehicle gives an additional thrust and can push the second ship out of Earth's atmosphere. Warning! To place one ship above the other requires a lot of patience. It is very difficult, because of Earth's powerful gravity. Escape Earth Orbit In order to save some fuel, you can set a ship in low Earth orbit. the helping ship can come close and start pushing the main ship. This requires patience and the use of RCS Thrusters. Venus Surface See also: Fixed Point Landing This is a difficult mission, suitable for Venus. No other planet needs this kind of help. The helping ship lands first. The main ship will land on top of it. When surface mission is over, the helping ship fires its engines and helps the main ship reach a higher altitude, where the atmosphere is not so dense. From there, the main ship must fly on its own, to reach orbit. This kind of mission is very difficult. The main ship needs to land exactly on top of the helping ship, a very difficult task. In order to land, the main ship needs to do as follows: #Enter Venus Sphere of Influence #Gain a highly elliptical orbit by Aerobrake #Fire the engine at apoapsis, to gain a high Venus orbit #When the main ship is above the helping ship on its orbit, fire the engines to slow down and reach a direct impact trajectory, towards the helping ship. #From time to time, Trajectory Correction Maneuvers are needed, both above and inside the atmosphere. #After parachutes are deployed, with the help of RCS Thrusters or the engines, adjust the trajectory to fall right on the helping vehicle. In addition, the helping vehicle might have wheels, to move itself to the best place. In Orbit Around Other Planets A helping ship in orbit around Venus (and sometimes other planets) can be useful to push a ship into a heliocentric orbit, to reach Earth. You will need to bring the helping ship from Earth. Earth Descent This is something nobody likes. A ship managed to visit another planet, then returned to Earth, gained Earth orbit but has no fuel left to land. The solution is to bring in another ship, to push. Another problem occurs when the ship that needs to be rescued has no parachutes. In this case, it is possible to build a rescue ship that will land together with the capsule it has rescued. Advanced Helping For those who have the paid version, it is possible to do much more. Refuel Starting with version 1.35, it is possible to refuel a ship, that will then continue its mission. In order to do that, helping ships need to be brought into orbit around Earth and other planets. dock in and refuel. Dock A helping vehicle can dock to the main ship, then use its own engines. Surface Rescue AS for now, it is impossible to rescue a ship from the surface of a planet or moon. The only exceptions are Phobos and Deimos, which have a very weak gravity. However, it is possible to come with a ship very close and imagine a rescue mission. Problems The use of helping ships is very difficult, because it requires patience and very difficult maneuvers. Sometimes, one ship can go through the other. When accelerating time, physics are disabled, meaning that one ship can pass through the other. Category:Tutorial